Making Process and Technology Work For You

Pragmatic Process Improvement Consulting

"With your coaching and advice, ultimately you are blessing many homeless and poor through more efficient and effective services provided by our organization."

As your organization grows, as did this client's, you expect that the number of your services, products, customers, and suppliers will also grow. No surprise there. As more people find out about your fantastic offerings, the more demand grows naturally.

What tends not to evolve naturally are the organization's underlining processes and supporting technologies. Processes that were once light and quick are now a slog. Technology hinders rather than bolsters your initiatives. And you start to experience all sorts of surprises (and not the good kind).

Unless you deliberately evolve your processes and technology as your products, customers, and objectives evolve, you're going to run up against:

Bottlenecks and Barriers

Do you continue to fight obstacles in your project flow, despite your many attempts to just push through them?

Inconsistent Outcomes

Did you wake up today wondering if you'll get high-quality results or unexpected havoc?

Chaotic, Cumbersome Processes

Are there processes that everyone dreads and avoids doing even though they're critical to your offering?

Troublesome Technology "Solutions"

Rising Frustration Levels

Do you have a department that can't identify (or even agree upon) the source of the problem, but everyone is irked?

Can't Everyone Just Row Faster?

The pace of business is fast. So fast that often times all we can think to do is just row faster, or harder, or longer.

And this works... but only for a little while. To support your growing organization, more and bigger oars alone won't cut it.

Your process and technology decisions must respond in ways that add long-term value, not just push more volume.

From Rough Waters to Smooth Sailing

Hi, I'm Nicole! Rough waters and choppy waves don't bother me. Why? Because I've experienced it time after time: teams can and do leave behind unsatisfactory, slow, error-riddled operations and sail ahead with high-quality, on-time, accurate activities. It is possible for you too!

There's nothing I enjoy more than being invited into companies to work collaboratively in transforming their projects, processes, and teams.

You too can have an organization or department that responds quickly to growing demands and enjoys:

High-quality, predictable processes

get it done right the first time

A streamlined, time-saving environment

free of workarounds, exceptions, and unnecessary bottlenecks

Knowing at a glance the project's status

with defined metrics, goals, and expectations

Teams rowing together

without finger-pointing and blame games

Technology adoption that works

moving you forward, never holding you back

Let's Make It Work For You

It brings me tremendous joy to help teams address whatever disorderly processes and disruptive technologies stand in the way of their happiness and success.

Below are some of the ways I've helped other organizations and would love to help you too.

Process Analysis and Improvement

Do you have a process (or two, or three) that's chaotic, error-riddled, and making everyone pull their hair out? It's ok to mumble "yes". Here's a secret: there's at least one in nearly every organization. Working collaboratively, we'll identify and implement pragmatic ways to:

engage in root cause analysis for finding (and fixing!) the problem, not the symptoms

address exceptions and workarounds that frustrate everyone

identify and focus on the value-add activities while eliminating the wasteful ones

visually define and communicate metrics so everyone rows with the same objectives in mind

Pragmatic Coaching and Advising

Perhaps you're trying to create a lean department or introduce the idea of continuous process improvement to your team. Kudos to you! Change is hard and resistance inevitable. Getting some outside guidance can help you brainstorm, validate, and more effectively find ways to:

dismantle barriers and remove obstacles that keep people from doing their best work

unlock individual and team creativity and problem-solving

improve the flow of communication and feedback around a process

pick the right tools and techniques for your team's environment, capabilities, and goals

Technology-enabled Process Improvement

Sometimes leveraging a piece of technology can help improve a process. Sometimes ripping it out is the best move. And sometimes getting it to play well with another piece of tech is the trick. I can help you figure out when and where to use software and/or technology automation to your advantage, not your downfall, by:

assessing requirements that are critical to your organization's success today as well as your vision of the future

identifying and evaluating alternatives in order to help you choose what's right for your budget, needs, and capabilities

putting together a strategy to mitigate risks upfront and get feedback sooner rather than later

constructing an implementation plan that fits your people and processes to help ensure technology adoption

More About Nicole

I'd actually prefer to hear more about you and your process and/or technology frustrations, but perhaps you'd like to know...

For the last 20 years, I've worked in a variety of roles at financial, technology, insurance, healthcare, manufacturing, and non-profit companies to help teams tune-up and revitalize their processes and technology choices.

I'm officially certified in Continual Process Improvement from CSU,
and have a Business Administration degree from Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University. But I prefer to think of my passion as simply helping teams row together to achieve great results.

I'd be delighted to help your organization improve your processes, use technology pragmatically, and enable teams to do their very best work as your organization grows.

Let's Chat

Drop me a line and let's find ways to make processes and technology work FOR YOU!